Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1887-01-12

was GnlS aIOer al! OOpnNi 8 uastuS ~ ~
PhIas face! 80. 81 80. - 8 -
She was the best dresser ever knew. 1
color, either by study or natural gift, she
was perfect mistress. Accordingly her ap-
pearance pleased numbers of people before
they saw her face; and many time as she
went down the street the curiosity of those
who walked behind was aroused to see what
might be the face of the woman whose gown
and mantle were so striking by the harmony
or the contrast of their hue. Flowers, rib
bons, brooches, all that sets off dress, she used
with the most unerring taste. And she man
aged through all the changes OF fashion to re-
spect herself and her own figure and face; in
the fashion she always would be, but still she
modulated it SO as to be the queen and not the
slave. No doubt Sophia must have paid
great attention to her dress, but scarcely
think she could have achieved such constant
success, or so complete, had she not been a
dresser born.
Then her manners in society were cap
tivating. Here think the little mothers
homilies were useful, indeed. With what a
graceful attention she heard what you had to
say! How modestly she gave her own
opinion! She was we'll read, and could take
her part in most conversations with case;
and now and then she could deal out a witty
stroke. Indeed Sophia had great deal of
humor, but seldom gave it the rein in society,"
Night was her time, with Car and Sibyl; and
often the two more brilliant girls, as they
laughed at her comical "reminiscences OF the
day would feel how easily Sophia could out
shine them if she tried
She loved the world Here again the in-
fuence of her mother was perceptible, with
this difference, that the world in her mothers
language signifed society, and nothing more,
while Sophia would have included in it the
whole Of nature and life. I do not think
ever saw any one who had such simple and
unaffected enjoyment in living as she. A
walk in the woods was enchantment to her;
and, on the other hand, I have seen her on
the tiptoe Of pleasurable excitement for
ball. She was no poetic recluse; she neve.
Stunned society or its pleasures, but rather
sought them. There was not particle OF
affectation about her; indeed, she retained
her girlishness and her love Of girlish amuse-
ments for an unusually bng time.
And she certainly remembered hsrM9ef1hs9;S Mfte1hls9;; s.
teaching in another partiicllar~ she tried to
please :. She kna'x mat women ought to be
an object of admiration and affection, and
she ruled her whole life with this fact in
view. But Sophia understood the art OF
charming, which, with all their grace
fulness, few English women entirely do.
Perhaps Nature feels that she has given
t1r English women enough already, and,
mindful of the limitation which ought to
mark all mortal things, has withheld that
one gift which would make them irresistible.
Sophia knew that face and figure are not
everything. She understood that it is the
woman man admires, not her eyes or nose
or lips or waist; the whole woman-person,
dress, manner, talents and character.
Frenchwomen are in this respect more far
sighted than our English ladies, but even
Frenchwomen do not fully realize this great
social truth. A woman who knows that her
dress is tasteful and her expression agreeable
and her conversation lively will be little dis
mayed to hear of crows feet round her eye
lids or gray hairs on her temples. Her bet
ter part is blooming amidst the gentle decay
of more material charms You will laugh
when tell you before the story ends how
Sophia Temple, Lady Beauty, at the age Of
fifty-three, had new lover, and what a
lover he was.
One touch I must add to this picture.
Sophia was in the best sense " the word
religious woman. "Without love-" cries a
great novelist, Il can fancy h2 gentleman" !"
A little difldently should add, without re-
igion l can fancy no lady. Sophia's piety
was in no way obtrusive, never puritanical.
never ascetic, but gentle, animated and
humane. 1t quite saved her from her moth
ers narrow and healtlCss and merely spark
ling worldliness Sophia loved the world, but
had hope beyond it, and her religion gave a
richness, a sweetness, seriousness to all her
charms.
must admit, however, that many of Lady
Beauty's own sex declared her to be nothing
particular. That men admired her was not
to be denied, but women would often ask
dryly what it was for. When I knew her we'll
enough to take such liberty, ventured to
say to her one day that, greatly as she was
praised by our sex, her own appeared to de-
cline to accept her as by any means repre-
sentative. She laughed with much gayety.
"Some of u.s." she replied, admire in our
selves what is forcible and striking. 1 believe
you said to me yourself one day that Lady
Macbeth and some other eminent ladies Of the
Imagination, whom we remember, made suf
fciently vivid impression to satisfy both
sexes. You added something like this:
somewhat doubt if Lady Macbeth would be
altogether success in the drawing ROOM